What’s next?

The number of children in foster care in California is 62,000 (kidsdata.org). What’s next for us is continuing to help shape the Continuum of Care Reform for those children, and more to come. In 2016, the California Department of Social Services began the rollout of AB 403: California’s Child Welfare Continuum of Care Reform (CCR). CCR is a comprehensive reform effort designed to better meet the physical, mental and emotional needs of youth in foster care. In short, it transforms existing long-term group homes into time-limited intensive treatment programs. The goal of CCR is for children to transition more quickly into “resource families” giving them the greatest chance to grow up in a permanent and supportive family home.

Youth Homes fully supports the changes embodied in CCR. Our leadership team has been involved at both the state and local level of this reform. We are considered by the county to be a “model program” for CCR. For example, Youth Homes provided trainings to other Contra Costa County group home programs on how to effectively navigate CCR reform. Furthermore, our treatment outcomes are double the national average. In 2014, Youth Homes earned national accreditation through the Council on Accreditation (COA), making us the only nationally accredited agency in Contra Costa County providing Intensive Residential Treatment Services. Youth Homes has closely tracked best practices and trends for years, and as a result we have taken many steps to prepare for these changes. One of the major initiatives has been to expand our Foster Family Agency (FFA), which will now transition to a Resource Family Agency. To learn more about CCR and how Youth Homes has positioned itself for the change, please click here.

make those goals count.

85% of our former residential clients who transitioned to Aftercare graduated from high school or earned their GED. Our kids beat the odds every day.